Australian Guitarist / Songwriter
Hey all!!
Just getting the new website rolling here, which I hope you enjoy, find easier, quicker, more attractive and just cooler in general!!! Maybe scratch the “more attractive” part as it is still a site about yours truly, so that isn’t really possible!!!!
Anyway, drop me a line if you like – site related or general stuff – I’d love to hear from you, especially if you’re in a band – maybe we could do a trade on albums or something??
Cheers!!!!
WOW!! – we’re all still here and the world didn’t end after all!!!! Aren’t we lucky!!!! 
Anyway, just a quick note here to let you all know that heaps is on the go, and I’m having such a great time putting everything together!!!
THE FECKERS:
Sessions to resume this coming weekend, and I’m super pumped!!! This will be one of the last sessions for the album. Finishing up bits and pieces. Since I last updated, there has been another Aussie visit by Mr Richard MacGyver Anderson, and we took care of heaps of stuff for the album – vocals, backing vocals, guitars etc, and Dennis also finished his last drum track over the past handful of weeks.
Being the professional he is, he would always give us the option of having him redo parts of the songs if need be, but we never needed to take him up on it ever over 15 drums tracks or something!!! What a guy, delivering such quality in such prompt fashion, and with a great attitude and some comedy thrown in as well. What more could we ask for.
Recently while doing the guitars, I also got to try and keep up with one of my musical hero’s (to be revealed shortly) on a Feckers song, who was kind enough to supply some amazing guitar for one of the heavier tracks on the album. To say it was an honour is the hugest understatement, and I’ll certainly be forever grateful to this gentleman for getting the opportunity at all. Hopefully I don’t suck too much next to his godliness on the instrument!!
On another note, we recently shot a heap of footage here in Werribee for some future Feckers videos. Would love to know what some of the locals thought of us when driving by and seeing some of the antics. We had a bigtime blast doing this, and I’ve came up with a rough version of the first video. We’ll be adding to it over the next little bit while the music is finished off, and unleashing it upon ya’s asap!!!
CS SOLO:
Had an acoustic session with Open Plan Studio recently that went fantastic. There is an EP worth of songs that I had started in 09 at Reich Records that got left behind as The Feckers and everything else took off, that I always said I’d get back to when the time came. I did some vocals on two tracks, and also twelve string guitar which went great. Will be doing more stuff there in early June.
Will also be finalising demos for the remaining songs on album #2 over the next couple of weeks and hopefully busting them out before the years end. This really depends on everything else running smoothly in the meantime, but fingers crossed!!
VIDEO:
Check out my Youtube Channel for a bunch of stuff, including a new video that has a heap of teaser clips from stuff I’ve mentioned above!!! There’s also a live version of “October 22” from the recent 303 gig in Northcote up there among other things.
Make sure ya add me there too so we can keep in touch!!!
Cheers guys and talk soon!!!!!!!!
Welcome to the year of the Fecker!!!! I apologise for the lack of updating here, but there has absolutely been a lot going on!!!! I’m real excited that it’s now 2011, the year that so much of this stuff we’ve been working on will finally see the light of day!!!
SOLO STUFF:
Gonna be playing an acoustic set at 303 in Northcote on Sunday, February 27th. There may very well be a song from the forthcoming Feckers album in my set for that day. You’ll have to wait and see!!
Check out the Facebook event for the show here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186638558023738
Also earlier in that week, on Wednesday February 23rd, I’ll be special guest on Radio Roarhouse, which is aired on 98.9 Northwest FM here in Victoria. Will be talking with the folks there, playing a few songs live, and possibly spinning some tracks from “Pieces” as well.
On another note, I recently added custom guitar picks to the CS-Songs Online Store!!! Check em out below:
THE FECKERS:
Sooooooooo much stuff going on here. Talking a lot with Richard about setting up some cool merch ideas and more when the album drops.
Onto the music itself, we’ve had so many amazing performances from folks around the globe. It’s really hard to list every single little thing, but at the time of writing, we have one more song to go drum wise, and I’ll be going into Red Planet in a week and a bit to add lotsa guitars and bits and pieces. We’re really on track for the planned release of mid to late 2011 for this baby!
For more info, check out http://www.facebook.com/thefeckers
GONE WILD:
I’ll be meeting up with Jeff Lethborg tomorrow and hopefully we can get his system up and running, then it’s full steam ahead for the 3rd album!!! Some awesome songs underway for this already!!!!
VIDS:
Check out my Youtube Channel for some fun stuff recently, like the first time in 5 years that I got to jam with Skube and Colski plugged in on some metal!! Great fun!!!
That’s it for now folks. Stay tuned for lots of awesome things to come in the following months. This year is gonna be a big one!!!
FECKER MEETS FECKER:
This was something that had been talked about since the late 90’s when we first started writing songs together through this at the time fairly unknown thing called the internet. Living in different countries wasn’t something we were about to let stop us I can assure you. But anyway, what I’m referring to is the meeting of my good mate, Richard Anderson, which happened this past week in Melbourne, Australia.
Had a great time hanging for a week and a half with Richard, writing songs, recording, playing live (!), meeting legendary eccentric tram drivers, eating awesome rissoles and mash pub grub, drinking Fat Yaks and Egg Flips, attending Neighbours night, and even going interstate for some more recording in Hobart.
I’m still totally wrecked and catching up on sleep – I think at rough count I was missing around 14 or 15 hours of sleep from the last weekend compared to usual, but it’s all been totally worth it, and a great time that we’ll always remember!!
Hopefully I can return the gesture come 2011!!
THE FECKERS:
Had an awesome session in Red Planet over the weekend where a number of tracks were tended to, and it’s sounding bloody unreal. We’ve also had some final keys and drum tracks come in over the last few weeks as well as another vocal from Mr Hurb Jephasun (http://www.thejephasuns.com/).
While at Red Planet, I did some acoustic and bass stuff, as well as hopefully not driving Stew too nuts with tracks I had brought down for various songs that needed to be flown into the projects.
Also of note, and it’s a pretty big “of note” is some more vocal stuff that Irene Slade laid down. She was under the weather a bit from a cold, and wasn’t totally confident the voice would hold up. Luckily for all, the song required a bit of grunt.
Stew has her do a sing along to the track to get some level, and before they start, Richard and I are in the control room and commenting that “she’ll probably nail it on this run through”, and sure enough, she TOTALLY did!!! When we heard it back, we just went “WOOOOOOOOOOOOW”!!!!!!!!!!! Great job Cuz!!!! \m/
On another note that is Fecker related, there was an inpromptu debut gig from The Feckers this past week also.
We were having dinner at the awesome Gypsy Bar in Fitzroy, where Richard’s cousin The Titman is the chef, and Richard was having me on that “you’re playing tonight” etc. Me being a pretty laid back guy, the last thing I wanna do is as they say in Australia “cut someone’s lunch”, so there was no way I was about to get in the face of the guy who was playing.
Anyway, my phone rings, I go outside, and Richard is already talking with the guy who was very cool might I add. When I come back in, it was all arranged much to my suprise, and the performance ended up being a Fecker one, debuting one of the songs from our forthcoming album that has some interesting lyrical content. Was funny to look out while playing it and see people eating dinner and laughing at the lyrics we weren’t sure we should even touch in that timeslot!!
Such fun. I busted out a solo song, and we did a blues jam, as well as a Queen song, which was real fitting being that we wouldn’t know each other if not for Queen. Cool!! 
SOLO ALBUM NUMBER TWO:
So among all the progress in other areas, I’m getting a clearer picture on how I want the next CS album to go, and for now, lets just say there will be a LOT of music, and it’s gonna have everything from metal to string accompanied acoustic stuff. I’m sure you’ll dig!!
So far there are 4 full band tracks ready to mix, and maybe 7 or 8 acoustic tracks that need vocals.
GONE WILD:
The lads have summoned me to play more of a role in proceedings this time round, and I’m willing and hopefully able haha!!! I know how prolific those dudes are, so am hoping I can keep up!!
While Richard was here, we worked on some backup vocals for a new songs that Rob Smith had penned this past week. Sounding real killer.
Check the Facebook page for more info: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GONE-WILD-Friends/119729439767?ref=ts
MORE PICS:
I recently got to try something new in the interviewing of a musical hero of mine by the name of Mr Grayson Hugh!! I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a way interesting read, and I really appreciate Grayson’s absolute coolness and honesty during this!!
This was a guest article for my mate Peter Hodgson’s I Hear Guitar Blog site.
Check it out!! http://iheartguitarblog.com/2010/09/interview-grayson-hugh-guest-post-by-chris-szkup.html
“Cinderella” – I just get a real classic vibe from this song. Real nice opener. Almost something I could see Bryan Adams doing. The other vibe I get is that it would be incredible too see some of this stuff given the live treatment, cause this man has quite a catalog of great songs!!!
“It’s Getting on top of Me” – Again this seems instantly classic to me – kinda like when you think you’ve heard something before but you haven’t. Real pumping stuff. A little bit more attitude than the melodic opener, not that this isn’t melodic either though, but things are turned up half a notch if you will. Love the riffs. Great rocking and rolling,
and the bass lines really jump out and compliment the song bigtime!! Would love to be in the crowd screaming “It’s getting on top of me” for that breakdown bit! Yeah!!
“Never a Dull Moment” – As with all of the songs really, but this chorus is a real goody to my ears – the groove really seems to kick in at the chorus, and the melody is awesome. Some nice guitar interplay between Rob and Rob haha. Always tastiness going on which is what it’s about – totally complimenting the song which to me is the best kinda playing.
“What Happened to my World?” – OK so before any morons get in, yes this song is inspired by and probably loosely based on “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. Credit for even going there – I know with my own music I’d sound like a retard if I tried something like this, but Rob does it extremely convincingly here – the guitars
definitely could be Brian May playing them, and the vocal harmonies could be the three guys overdubbing til the cows come home. The difference of course is that everything
on this track is one guy – Sir Robollio Smith!!! Epic!!!
“Free Spirit” – Gotta relate to the lyric in this one for sure!!! The guitar doodles throughout this wouldn’t be out of place in the most popular of songs of today. Very catchy.
“Freedom to be who I am” – And who you are Rob Smith, is a SHIT HOT acoustic player!!! Damn this song is really something special. Would love to see an album of all stuff like this. Really cool!!!
“You Say You Want to be free” – Some of my comments from “What Happened to my World” could go here – I can’t believe this is all one guy playing and singing this stuff!!! Also check out the song length – quite an effort to have something that long (16 minutes) and keep it interesting. Mr Smith has definitely pulled that off here. This is like
the coolest two or three songs you’ll hear this year but all joined together to equal some epicness!!!! By the way mate, next time people reckon my songs are too long, I’m gonna send them your way haha!!
“On Common Ground” – I get a real spacey kinda vibe from the production on the first part of this song with the clean tones and vocals. REALLY loving the clean guitar solo stuff. I’m always a sucker for a nice clean tone and some tasty licks – which there are plenty of here. The “kit” used for the drum programming seems to really add to this kind of song too. Always nice to hear a vocal cameo from our mate MacGyver (Richard Anderson), a longtime collaborator of Rob’s who contributes lyrics to tracks 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. Sweet track!
“Tears of the Sun” – Reading from the booklet this song was “inspired by the movie of the same name, and dedicated with deep respect to Bruce Willis and Antoine Faqua. I know Rob is a fan of Boston, which is the kinda vibe I get from the start of the song. Way cool anytime that happens!!! Having not seen the movie “Tears of the Sun”, I can only really imagine that if it were my movie this song was referencing, I’d certainly be happy and then some as it’s obvious that both Richard with his lyrics, and Rob with the music absolutely mean it!! Awesome ending to this song!!!
“Good Memories are made to Last” – Some cool interplay between the different guitar parts as always which Rob is so good at. Totally tasty playing with the leads. When the chorus kicks in, I get an image in my head of the video clip to “This is Love” by George Harrison where the family is all hanging out and enjoying each others company on a beautiful sunny day. I hear a bit that the “happier” songs are harder to write, and in my experience as a writer that can be true too. The guys pull it off awesomely here!!
“Let me Out” – BEAUT little bass runs on the intro and throughout. Love the tone as well!! Quite an eerie twist to the song at about 3.13 for a little bit which was cool, and also reminds me that the programming of the drums as always is fantastic on Rob’s stuff. A section like this with the wrong kinda drum sound would just go nowhere, but this was fantastic!!
“You’re Free” – So glad I got more of the acoustic stuff I was digging so much earlier on in the album with “Freedom to be who I am”!! Apparently this was recorded when it was raining outside according to the vocal intro – certainly not a bad way to spend a rainy day, and it almost looks like a tranquil scene – as long as “rain” doesn’t = pissing down rain haha!!
Beautiful song, and a fantastic close to the album!!!
In summing up, wow what a songwriter!!!! Amongst all the totally musically correct performances in the vocals, guitars, bass, keys etc, I guess it’s a possibility that the fact that the songs are all fantastic may be slightly overlooked!!!! So make no mistake – TOP NOTCH songwriting going on here!!! Hell Yeah Rob!!!
Everyone should buy this album and support independent music – the time and effort, and often money as well, is something that most folks don’t even give a second thought to in this age of music being apparently “free”. I sure hope that will change at some point, even though I’m not optimistic it will.
Contact robertsmith (a) xtra.co.nz or breakfree74 (@) gmail.com for purchasing info!!!!
PIECES GOES DIGITAL!!
After a couple of technical glitches holding it back a little bit, the album has finally got it’s digital release and will be popping up on more and more digital download sites over the coming weeks!!
I did a promo video to celebrate the release which you can find here, and you can purchase the album via CD Baby, Amazon, Great Indie.com, Good Noise.com, and Emusic.com, with more to come soon!!
Also for you old schoolers, you can still pick up a physical CD version (what are they? ) from the store here at CS-Songs.com!!
THE FECKERS
We’re kicking arse!!! More great performances from Dennis, Roy, Rob, Paul and even my cousin Irene Slade. Not to mention a cameo appearance from Mrs Jennifer Leeflang too which was fantastic!!!
Feel free to sign up to our Facebook Page, and suggest to your friends!!
To get a little sneak peak of what this thing is going to sound like, check out this video of me doing guitars on an as yet unreleased track from the album!!
The plan at this stage is that one or two singles may come out before the album which would be accompanied by a video ideally. Given the locales of all the contributors to this album, this may be ambitious, but definitely something that we wanna do as well!! Stay tuned!!
At the start of the month we had 4 days in the studio which was a combination of Feckers and solo stuff – both of which we made quite a lot of progress on!!!
SOLO STUFF – Check out my Youtube Channel for a new video with Skube and I singing backing vocals on one of the songs that will be on my next album!!! We finished off lead vocals for this round of songs on day 1 of the studio sessions just gone. Just gotta add a string section, and it’ll be a done deal!! To say I’m happy with the results would be an absolute understatement. Note there’s no release date for this set as yet – so far we’re 4 songs into it, so you’ll know more closer to it being finished!!
FECKERS – Days 2, 3 and 4 were spent working on Feckers material – from Skube doing bass tracks on an as yet unnamed track, to our cousin Irene Slad doing some killer vocals on two songs so far, to myself laying down bass and guitars on several tracks.
Since I got back, we’ve also had some more drum tracks come in from Mr Leeflang, some vocals from Mr Smith, and some more vocals from Mr Bratbakken. It’s all kicking total butt, and we can’t wait for you to hear it!!!!
We’ve also got a little snippet from me doing guitar tracks from this album on the Youtube channel, so make sure you pay a visit!!!
Only a short one today, but keep an ear out cause there is heaps of stuff happening and I love it!!!!
STORE REVAMP:
Finally added posters to the store as well as giving it an overall revamping. Folks should find it easier to use and hopefully a little better to look at too. Now along with Credit Card and Paypal, you can also use Money Orders which are available pretty much world wide as far as I’m aware. Any questions when ordering, email info@cs-songs.com
As well as all that, I’ve decided to to honour the shipping discount I offered over the Christmas / New Year period indefinitely – so basically anything you order from the store comes with free shipping!!
Check it out at http://www.cs-songs.com/store
NEW MUSIC:
Had some more fantastic sessions at Red Planet over recent weeks. Played some piano and finished off guitar on the songs we’re doing right now, and it’s sounding beyond what I ever could have hoped for already!! One of the songs is turning into quite a monster, growing and growing as monsters do!!
Mr Adrian Bryan was kind enough to come down and contribute some violin on this track for us which was fantastic. This was really cool for Skube and I, as Adrian was the guitar tutor at Claremont College when we were students there in the 1990’s!!
Will be uploading some vids asap, and possibly be leaking audio snippets of the stuff too as it’s completed!! Stay tuned!!
FECKERS:
Had some guitar sessions for The Feckers stuff recently at the house. Much thanks here to Steve Solomon and my Bro Mathew Szkup for loaning the gear. For a novice at this engineering stuff I think it went pretty good!!! Also thanks to my lady Aisha Polat for her help with engineering on this stuff too!!
Dennis Leeflang has been drumming up a storm on more stuff in the meantime, and we’re now close to having all of the drum tracks complete!!
EXCLUSIVES:
I’ve recently tried a few things – give aways, discounted shipping, and even a happy hour via the websites to try and inject some fun and a little bit of humour into things too.
While you’ll read about these things on all of my sites eventually, the quickest way to catch them is via Facebook, where everything is posted to originally, then the other sites automatically update with the info.
So feel free to sign up to my Facebook music page to ensure you don’t miss out on any future offers!!
Hey just a quick check in after a loooooooooong few days, and weeks really. Things are flying at the moment, and things are changing too!! Has been an interesting, but rewarding time of late and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here!!
ALBUM #2 – While we lost 3 drum tracks from July last year, it didn’t hold us back at all, as we were able to revisit those tracks and make them even more killer than they were!! As it’s my Bro and I bashing them out it’s real quick and natural to do another take, so we didn’t find this a problem at all retaking 3 out of 4 songs, and I’m pleased to report that after some fantastic progress over the last few weeks, the 4 songs basically need a couple of solos, piano / keys, and vocals and they’re a done deal!!
Might be some vids popping up from these sessions during the week and I’ve just uploaded a few pics to all the sites.
THE FECKERS – The cat is now officially out of the bag that joining us on drums for The Feckers album is none other than Mr Dennis Leeflang who currently plays for Bumblefoot and Lita Ford, as well as running a fantastic studio out of New York where he’s now based.
If you haven’t heard of this guy, go right away to http://www.dennisleeflang.com/
As for the album itself, we’re 7 tracks or so into the drums, with various other bits for pretty much all the tracks including vocals and guitars. Coming along fantastically!!
I’m going to be engineering some guitar parts for the album now and doing a lot more of the behind the scenes hands on stuff which is going to be keeping me even more busy on this stuff.
We still have some guests to confirm, but the stuff is turning out killer!!! We’ll have a website that you can keep an eye on in the future!!
GROUPIE CHRIS!! – Got to meet a couple of musical heroes of mine recently – Marty Friedman (ex Megadeth) and Devin Townsend (solo, Strapping Young Lad).
Quite an inspiring time!!!
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